Time – The Analytic Thomist

A Three-Valued B Theory for Aristotelians?

Let’s turn our attention now to the B Theory, in particular, to what I’ve called the Mixed B Theory. We can suppose that all actual substances and accidents, past, present, and future, are combined eternally with acts of existence, distinguishing them from merely possible substances and accidents. Is such a model compatible with Aristotelianism? SeeContinue reading “A Three-Valued B Theory for Aristotelians?”

Time and Modality: Mapping the Territory

Are actuality and presentness perfectly analogous? David Lewis would say Yes, since both are the by-products of the linguistic phenomenon of indexicality. Non-actual and non-present things and events are as much part of the reality as the actual present. We’ll just call this view ‘Lewisian’. There’s two kinds of A Theorists who could agree withContinue reading “Time and Modality: Mapping the Territory”

Inegalitarian (Aristotelian) A Theory

Storrs McCall’s Falling Branches model (1976) is the most attractive version of the A Theory of time for Aristotelians, since it relies on the changing modal status of possible events. It is also easy to combine with the idea that all possibilities branch off from the actual world. We can suppose that every event orContinue reading “Inegalitarian (Aristotelian) A Theory”

Re-thinking the A and B Theories

J. M. E. McTaggart (1866-1925), a Cambridge metaphysician, introduced a distinction between three kinds of temporal series: A, B, and C. The A Series: Past – now – future The B Series: 43 BC – 2017 AD – 2067 AD The C Series: Event 2 is between events 1 and 3, with 2060 years betweenContinue reading “Re-thinking the A and B Theories”